Norman Baker asks some Questions in Parliament

[London Irish]

It looks like he smells a rat!

No, he's just bollocking on about our Hull home game, much good that it will do him

 

[bigc]

Whilst this all shows that Norman Baker is still out to get us, despite orginally saying he would accept Prescott's decision and work with all parties to ensure a satisfactory outcome, may I remind everyone that this board is read by both Lewes DC folk and Baker's office. So, let's keep private any suggestions about how we deal with them. They are the enemy and should be treated as such. I am not advocating anything illegal or violent but we should leave these matters to the club and "Falmer for all" to deal with.

However, Lord B should be commended as ever for sharing this info with us so we are aware of what these Lib Dems are upto. How any Albion supporter can continue to support that party is beyond me.

I guess to beat Baker at his own game we have to examine the fine print even more than him.

check old hansard's for his questions etc, root around his "interests" or whatever.

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

This one went to John Prescott, but was answered by the Junior Minister, Angela E Smith, on 11 May 2006:-

Communities and Local Government

Brighton and Hove Albion

Norman Baker: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will list the dates of contacts between (a) Ministers and (b) officials in his Department and representatives of (i) Brighton and Hove council and (ii) Brighton and Hove Albion football club since 25 October 2005; and whether in each case the contact was by (A) telephone, fax or e-mail, (B) written correspondence and (C) meeting. [65222]

Angela E. Smith: I have been asked to reply.

Given the hon. Gentleman's interest in the Falmer planning decision, I have restricted my answer to contact regarding that matter.

I am unable to provide details of telephone calls, faxes or emails as these records are not held centrally.

The letter setting out the Secretary of State's decision regarding the applications at Falmer was issued to all main parties on 27 October 2005.

No Ministers or officials in the Department for Communities and Local Government have had any meetings or written correspondence relevant to the planning decision with either the Council or the Football Club since the decision was issued.



Oviously not satisfied with this answer, he's put down another question to Ruth Kelly:-

Norman Baker (Lewes): To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 11th May 2006, Official Report, column 492W, on Brighton and Hove Albion, if she will list all other contacts with (a) Brighton and Hove Council and (b) Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club since 25th October 2005 which she classifies as not relevant to the planning decision to which she refers.










I think our Norm is going to find out that Ruth Kelly might get annoyed if he starts to pester her.

The reason that ODPM limited that first answer is that if they had applied it to the whole of ODPM they would have had to have listed every single e-mail, phonecall or meeting they had with Brighton and Hove Council. In a department the size of ODPM all of whom deal with local councils this would have been no small list and who have meant asking every single division within the Department.

Bakers follow up question probably means that this will have to happen.

Baker loves wasting taxpayers money

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Re: Re: Norman Baker asks some Questions in Parliament

The reason that ODPM limited that first answer is that if they had applied it to the whole of ODPM they would have had to have listed every single e-mail, phonecall or meeting they had with Brighton and Hove Council. In a department the size of ODPM all of whom deal with local councils this would have been no small list and who have meant asking every single division within the Department.

Bakers follow up question probably means that this will have to happen.

Baker loves wasting taxpayers money

Bearing in mind the responsibilities of Ruth Kelly's department, Baker should be given information about every contact between Brighton & Hove City Council and the Government on EACH of the following topics:-

Local Government Policy;
Local Government Finance;
Neighbourhood Renewal;
Fire Services;
Cities;
Housing;
Planning;
Planning Casework;
Urban Policy;
Growth Areas;
Building Regulations;
Government Offices;
Gypsies and Travellers;
Climate Change;
Regional Economic Development;
Local Government Intervention and Engagement;
Beacon Councils;
Capacity Building Fund;
e-Government;
Audit Commission;
Performance Framework;
Ordnance Survey;
Women and Equalities;
Community Cohesion and Faith;
New Deal for Communities;
Neighbourhood Management Pathfinders;
Local Enterprise Growth Initiative;
Liveability;
Social Exclusion.

Hell's teeth! I'm currently working for an organisation in Brighton that receives funding from the New Deal for Communities initiative. This afternoon, I passed a form on to the woman from the Council who administers the funding. She'll send it on to a Civil Servant in Ruth Kelly's Department.

Is that one of the "contacts with Brighton and Hove City Council" that has to be reported to Baker?

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

Re: Re: Re: Norman Baker asks some Questions in Parliament

Bearing in mind the responsibilities of Ruth Kelly's department, Baker should be given information about every contact between Brighton & Hove City Council and the Government on EACH of the following topics:-

Local Government Policy;
Local Government Finance;
Neighbourhood Renewal;
Fire Services;
Cities;
Housing;
Planning;
Planning Casework;
Urban Policy;
Growth Areas;
Building Regulations;
Government Offices;
Gypsies and Travellers;
Climate Change;
Regional Economic Development;
Local Government Intervention and Engagement;
Beacon Councils;
Capacity Building Fund;
e-Government;
Audit Commission;
Performance Framework;
Ordnance Survey;
Women and Equalities;
Community Cohesion and Faith;
New Deal for Communities;
Neighbourhood Management Pathfinders;
Local Enterprise Growth Initiative;
Liveability;
Social Exclusion.

Hell's teeth! I'm currently working for an organisation in Brighton that receives funding from the New Deal for Communities initiative. This afternoon, I passed a form on to the woman from the Council who administers the funding. She'll send it on to a Civil Servant in Ruth Kelly's Department.

Is that one of the "contacts with Brighton and Hove City Council" that has to be reported to Baker?

Quite possibly! Thankfully though there is something called "disproportionate cost". If an answer will cost (in terms of man hours) more than £600 pounds to answer then the Department can tell the MP to piss off. Hopefully sense will prevail though and some official will ring up Bakers office and ask him what he actually meant by that question and save the country some money.

 

[Dave the OAP]

"women and equalities"


whatever next?

 

[The Large One]

The simple point is - why does Baker want to know about contact between the government and the city council, irrespective of the content? This is purely to clog up Ruth Kelly's department in a way that we tried to clog up Lewes District Council by asking them all sorts of questions under the Freedom of Information Act.

And LDC eventually withdrew from that, refusing to answer any more questions.

 

[Curious Orange]

If you phone any company these days the call is nearly always preceeded by the message' Your call may be recorded and monitored to improve training and performance in the future.'

That doesn't mean much, companies will only bother recording calls where regulatory bodies require them to do so - like telesales in the Financial Services industry.

Recording every call is not practical.

 

[Storer68]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Norman Baker asks some Questions in Parliament

Quite possibly! Thankfully though there is something called "disproportionate cost". If an answer will cost (in terms of man hours) more than £600 pounds to answer then the Department can tell the MP to piss off. Hopefully sense will prevail though and some official will ring up Bakers office and ask him what he actually meant by that question and save the country some money.

the £600 limit only applies to requests to Departments made by under the Freedom of Information Act. Questions from MPs asked in Parliament are not limited. They have to be answered regardless of the cost.

saying the information is not held centrally is probably true but also a Parliamentary accepatble way of avoiding answering the question directly simply because it collating the information requested would be too resource intensive (too muchj time and expensive).

 

[colinpants]

twat the twat

 

[eastlondonseagull]

To be fair, will Mr Twatface please explain why LDC doctored important Falmer literature. Baker is such a cunt.